I've been an active part of the lolita community since 2011 and I swear
this dress has been a problem since then, and still is, somehow
I swear that before 2015 when you searched lolita dress, if you looked for
Searched images for lolita dresses back before 2015
this image would come up the most out of anything else
And I'm very thankful that since then there have been so many more resources
And so much more content on the internet for
actual lolita and so now when you search you will find, more likely, real results
Now the stock photo is cute, don't get me wrong, but I guarantee 100% if you buy this listing
This is not what you will receive
This dress is actually a replica of a small Japanese brand's dress called And Romeo
Now they don't sell this dress anymore but they still are in operation
So if you're interested in some of their other dresses or you like this design
I encourage you to check them out I'll have a link below
But it's fair to say that a lot of people don't know that this is a replica
I actually didn't know for the longest time I just assumed it was a randomly made dress
This dress listing is on a lot of different websites and
a lot of people see it and think that it is very cute and that they are getting some sort of deal
And I promise you that you are not
You're doing a disservice to yourself because you are spending money on something
that doesn't have good quality control, is not going to be good quality, is a replica
I made a whole video about why replicas are bad and why they're a waste of your money
This dress has recently been circulating again on tiktok
And newer people that don't know lolita fashion as well see it as something that is a good deal
And that's why I am going to order this horrible infamous dress to show you
just how bad it can be and some other options that you can get that are in a similar price
range that are a lot better quality, that you'll be a lot happier in lolita,
that you will be a lot more confident and comfortable in, so
I'm doing this for you, so that you won't buy this terrible dress
Now I know what some of you may be thinking: it's incredibly irresponsible to be buying something
knowing that it's going to be horrible quality, and that you're probably not going to wear it,
and that it will just end up in a landfill
But oh no, I have thought of that, and the reason that I still have my Walmart dress
is because I want to collaborate with Holly and another one of our friends to actually repurpose
both of these dresses into something else So I'm really excited to work on those
videos in the future and hopefully be able to do something crafty and give new life to these pieces
I haven't even ordered or opened the pink one but I just know it's gonna be bad
So I'm preemptively ready for it to be horrible
If Holly and our friend cannot find a way to repurpose them, if the quality is too bad
Then I have also found an area that is outside of my city actually,
Where it is illegal to throw away fabric
So there are facilities there that will recycle fabrics
They will either sell them in thrift stores or they will actually take the fabric and
use it to make insulation and car seats and a bunch of other things
I encourage you please never throw away clothes, never throw away fabrics,
Always donate them, and if they are in a state that cannot be donated please look
into facilities that will recycle fabrics and reuse and dispose of fabrics properly
Uh, if you are in Southern Ontario I will link below the one that I found
But look for one in your local community
All right so now let's actually look for this dress and order one
I get questions a lot on different lolita websites and whether they are authentic,
or genuine, or safe to buy from, and that is the perfect way to tell if a website is shady and you
shouldn't buy from - if it has THIS dress as a listing, you should know you shouldn't buy it
I think that this dress started to gain popularity or
exposure when it was on Milanoo (or Milano, I'm not really sure how to say it)
Milanoo (?) is a website that sells wholesale clothes, but they are notorious
for their stock photos not matching what they actually sell
And I feel like with Wish and so many other sites now in 2020,
this is something that we're pretty much accustomed to
We know that some of these shady sites
don't actually sell what they have their stock photo listed with
This has been super prominent in lolita since, as I mentioned, like 2011
There were countless posts on livejournal of people
showing their Milanoo dress stock photo versus what they actually got and it's just wild
Milanoo (Milano?) got a horrible
reputation with lolitas so they decided to make a secondary site called Lolita Show
And yes Lolita Show is owned by the same company as Milanoo
I actually have a longer in-depth video on this on my patreon
Because I had some personal experiences
with the company that I don't necessarily feel comfortable talking about publicly, but
As part of my Not-So-Lovely series, there's a whole episode on that if you want the tea
So other places that this has shown up is like Amazon, Light in the Box... yeah Light in the Box,
Aliexpress, other just sites that aren't known for having ~quality lolita fashion~
As I was searching for this dress a lot of the ones that I found were between 80 and 100 dollars
Which is just so horrible to me, because there's so many good things that you can get
if your budget is 80 to 100 dollars, like there's so much better use of your money
This image was also listed on some unsavory sites,
things that are completely irrelevant to lolita fashion and not really lolita fashion,
and let's just say, things that would make Tyler's head explode
But I am looking for the absolute cheapest dress there is, the absolute
cheapest listing of this dress that I can find which led me to [redacted]
which is a website that has cosplays and it was around thirty dollars, so
I've ordered it
I'm gonna try to forget about this until it arrives
I know this is gonna be bad Just call it mother's intuition
I'm not looking forward to opening this, uh
This is my first time wearing my new Kaneko blouse It's really cute
It's uh, a lot, but I love it, my-
I feel very official and serious
It's a little bit strange with earrings and hime bangs
But getting used to it!
I really really love it!
I should just spend this video talking about how great this blouse is
I don't want to do it I'm doing this for you
I'm doing this because I love you, and I don't want you to waste any money on a dress like this
I just want to yeet this off our balcony
like
Oh the stitching looks real bad already
I'm so sorry this is gonna be so crinkly I'm probably just gonna put music over this
[♪♪♪]
There's a headband I might actually be able to use this-
Oh no... [anxious laughter]
Oh nooo what the [bleep]? What the [bleep] is this?
Is this supposed to be an asymmetrical design? I don't think so I think this is just... bad
Seriously I gotta get some close-up shots of this The sewing is SO BAD
I took a sewing course once in college and I got a D
And I could probably - no I could most certainly make a better headbow than this
You know there was like one second where I looked at this and I thought maybe it was gonna be okay
Maybe it's gonna be passable but no
Oh god I'm already crying
Wait there's another bow that's supposed to be the waist bow
That's actually not that bad I feel like I can DIY this into something
Possibly usable
I don't know
It's so weird that the headbow bow is a different- like there's different lace on it than this one
There's like that really cheap horrible lace
I thought this tissue paper was part of it and honestly I wouldn't be surprised
What!? It looks really short
Is it really short? Oh what [bleep] eww
Okay these bows aren't actually too bad
It seems very short which I'm surprised by because in the ones that I've seen people review
usually the torso is like way too long but in this case it seems very very short
I think that this is because
they were not trying to make an actual lolita- I- am I holding a child's dress?
It when I'm looking at it against me it looks so small but um maybe on camera it looks bigger
But like holding this when I'm used to holding regular lolita dresses,
this feels like a child's dress
I will say that the feel of it is... slightly above the Walmart one
I do think that as scrap material this might turn into something better...?
The inside it seems- it seems very unfinished
Ohhh
I don't want to put this on my body
This 100% feels like a costume The material, the way that it's
constructed, the skirt length is too short, but also somehow too big?
It's very strange and I can understand why someone who is new and has no references with
buying real lolita pieces how they might see this and think that it's cute and fine
Having purchased real lolita pieces you can really see where this dress struggles
There is no consistency with the type of lace that's being used and there's this really
really cheap lace that not only doesn't feel good but I think that the way that it's constructed
it's not gonna actually stay on the dress for very long, and I believe it's gonna start lifting
Also the way that these panels are put down I feel like the same thing is gonna happen
I definitely would not be comfortable wearing this to a lolita meetup, so...
It doesn't really make sense - why wouldn't you spend the money
and the time to get a proper lolita dress that you
could be happy with, and could enjoy, and feel that cute princessy vibe,
but also wear comfortably to a convention, to wear comfortably to represent lolita fashion,
and to a meetup and be involved with the community like... it seems like a no-brainer
There's also absolutely no resale value in this dress
If I were to sell this dress I'd have to sell it for like,
five to ten dollars? And I don't know it would probably just
be for somebody to remake this into something, like no one's gonna buy this as a lolita dress
I feel like you can't really see it because unfortunately in my apartment the angles that
I need to film at, uh, are like facing downwards and you can't really see how short this dress is
But it is the shortest dress I own and yet the skirt is very big, so I feel like if I wore
more petticoats to fill this out it's gonna look even more costumey and not lolita
The other thing about this dress is that if you buy this listing I cannot guarantee
that you will get this dress Even if you are looking at this
and you're thinking "oh it's not that bad like I don't mind it, could last me a little
bit even if it starts to fall apart, but it'll make me happy for that short term"
I can't guarantee that this is what you're gonna get because there's no
quality control with these dresses, there is no person to really hold accountable,
there's no company or brand to hold accountable It would be much better to buy a similar style of
dress, if you like this like tiered style, from Bodyline because you know that those photos are
actually what you're going to get, and if you for some reason don't get that you can return it
Let's say that you're feeling like an Amazon dress is the only thing that
you can fit within your budget What are your other options?
Well it's very important to consult my oh-so-serious lolita shopping triangle
that I made up
You can't have all three:
You can't have a very cheap, very easily bought and accessible, and very good quality dress
If you want something that is cheap and good quality, it's going to take more time to find
If you want something that is cheap and easy it's probably going to be less good
I know when you see lolitas and their wardrobes it feels very daunting, and that you want
to have it all, right then, right now
But it's important to remember that it's taken most of us years to build this up
Lolita fashion is not free It is going to take some sort of investment
But it's also not a necessity
Please make sure that you are able to take care of yourself first
and your major needs before buying lolita fashion
And look for areas of your life that are not
essential where you can save money in order to afford it
Everyone has different budgets and it may take people years to buy a thirty dollar dress,
and that is okay, and that should still be celebrated
I have met people who have introduced themselves and been like
"this is my first coordinate I know it's only Bodyline and not AP but-"
NO! No buts, stop there
The amount of money that you spent on your coordinate truly does not matter
What matters is that you put in the time and the effort to learn about the fashion,
to educate yourself, to research, that you put in the effort to save up money
and buy it, and that you also grew the confidence to wear this alternative fashion
That's so much different than someone just saying
"oh yeah, all I could afford was this cute dress on Amazon, so I bought it"
To me what that says is that you straight up don't really care about this fashion or the community
It also shows me that your commitment to this fashion is really low, and that's okay
If you just want a quick, cute pink dress and you don't really care and you don't
want to be involved in the community, that's fine you're free to do that
But it's important to remember that there are people who spend years
saving up and working towards this
So when you wear something that
doesn't reflect the community well, you're going to be open to criticism
Because you're basically insulting the work that other people have put in and the effort
There's a huge difference between that and gatekeeping
And yes you will encounter real gatekeeping lolitas, real elitists, real brand whores
Especially with the current state of the world and the community having to be largely online
it will feel a lot worse and you may be mocked for wearing something that's
"cheaper", or for not having enough lolita, or whatever
But if you explain to gatekeepers and brand whores that you may encounter
The amount of work that you've put into this fashion
That you can demonstrate an understanding of it, and that you really care about it
It will make those gatekeepers look like idiots and other people will see it
In general there are many more lolitas
in the community who really want to help you and want the community to grow and thrive
Because we love this fashion and we don't want to see this fashion or the community fade away
But sometimes those people can be overshadowed by the negativity
If you are an already established lolita please encourage others
Please support one another and celebrate the work that new lolitas are putting in, whether
it's handmade, brand, Bodyline, Taobao, whatever it is if it's legitimate, let's celebrate it
Getting involved with the local community can be SO helpful when it comes to buying lolita fashion
Because there might be resources in your area that I don't know about
As well, a lot of lolitas will sell their things locally because they don't want to
deal with shipping, and a lot of the times you can find really great deals because
people just want to clear out their wardrobe and get rid of things
Lace Market is essentially the eBay of lolita fashion and you can find great deals there
But what is available is definitely dependent on who is selling and what they're selling and when
So there might be days where you look at it and it doesn't
seem like there's anything within your budget
But then there might be other days where people have listed a bunch and there's a lot of things so
you can get really great deals there
But it will take more time and effort to keep up with it and to keep checking in
Taobao brands are generally cheaper, and for those brands that don't ship
overseas you can buy them from resellers or use different shopping services
Callista has a very helpful video on how she shops from Taobao, I really enjoyed it
As well FluffyKawaiiJo has a lot of resources too,
and Kimbuucha has a really good video on how to budget for lolita
It's important that you don't get all of your resources just from me
I have a tab on my youtube for a bunch of different lolita channels
that I really encourage you to check out and see
The quickest and easiest place to shop for lolita is probably Bodyline
It is very easy to follow, there are very affordable options, and you know
what you're getting when you place an order
This dress that I'm wearing is from Bodyline
Bodyline also sells very very cheaply secondhand so I really
encourage searching for Bodyline on Lace Market
If you don't wear lolita personally I also really appreciate you taking the time
to watch these videos and learn about it because that is also really helpful to
the community - to have people who are informed about it and can talk about it and appreciate it
And I appreciate you for being here and for watching this
I want to say that I'm not trying to shame anyone who has made mistakes in the past
when it comes to buying bad lolita
If you've bought things from Lolita Show, Milanoo, Amazon, whatever, that's okay
I've made mistakes too and I would love to hear some of your horror stories in the comments,
any regretful purchases that you've made, so that we can all learn to do better moving forward
I'd also love to hear if you have any favourite resources, shopping services,
or things that I didn't mention in this video Please leave them in the comments too
and Stay Lovely